Names
by tuttiflutey630
Summary: Three girls sat in an 8thgrade advanced English class. They weren't friends, at the time. Could a substitute teacher who just might know about their past change all that?
1. Chapter 1

_December 12, 2027_

_2:14 p.m._

_West Chase Middle School_

Erica Brigham sighed deeply. She wished it would just go ahead and be Christmas Break already. Mrs. Naphtali, her English teacher, had gone to Florida for an early vacation. Erica wished she could be that lucky.

Konstantina Vasko noticed the way the substitute teacher was looking at her. It was pretty weird. The lady looked from her, to Bailey McBrian, to Erica Brigham. Konstantina didn't particularly like either of those girls. Erica was one of the more popular girls in school, and it was all because of her hair. Her hair was stunning yellow, and it touched her shoulders. Bailey McBrian was smart. Well, so was Konstantina, so it wasn't the fact that Bailey was smart that bugged her, it was just the way that Bailey had an annoying habit for being amazingly good at everything she tried.

Bailey McBrian stared forward, trying to figure out if she knew the woman that was substitute teaching from today until Christmas Break. She looked a little bit familiar, but Bailey couldn't exactly place where she would know this lady from. She appeared to be Latin American- from Mexico, maybe, or Puerto Rico?

"Hello, class," the substitute said. "My name is Mrs. Christensen; I'll be your substitute for the next week-and-a-half. Mrs. Naphtali, your regular Advanced English teacher, has told me that for your next assignment, you will be researching your name- meaning, country of origin, famous people with that name, and why your parents chose to name you that name instead of, oh, anything else. Speaking of names, could we go around the rooms and say your name, just for my sake?"

And so the class did. And after they had, Mrs. Christensen put out some baby name books to pass around. "Bailey," Mrs. Christensen said. "Could you come here for a second?"

_**Bailey McBrian**__ is in trouble,_ thought Erica. She couldn't believe it. Bailey had to be the most perfect girl in West Chase middle school, maybe in all of there suburban Washington, D.C. neighborhood.

"Bailey," Mrs. Christensen asked. "What is your mother's name?"

"Tabitha," Bailey replied. "And my dad's name is Brian… why?"

"I was just curious," Mrs. Christensen said. "Well, I'll let you get back to your name project."

"Okay," Bailey said.

_Brian McBrian… Tabitha… Bailey,_ Mrs. Christensen thought. _I wonder if she knows. I wonder if I'm right._


	2. Chapter 2

_Same Day_

_4:45 p.m._

_The McBrian Household- Kitchen_

"Dad?" asked Bailey. "Do you know somebody with the last name Christensen?"

"I think one of your mom's friends married a John Christensen or something," Brian McBrian replied. "Why?"

"Well, our substitute's name was Mrs. Christensen, and she seemed to know me," Bailey explained. "I thought she looked familiar, too."

"I don't know," Brian replied. "Ask your mother when she gets home. I think it might have been… the Puerto Rico friend. Yes, yes, it was definitely the Puerto Rico girl. What was her name?"

"But how would I know her?" Bailey pressed.

"Oh, your mom and three of her friends were so close," Brian commented. "Lena was one of them, and then there was one named Brianne or something, and then the Puerto Rican girl. I remember thinking the Puerto Rican girl was brilliant. What was her name?"

_5:06 p.m._

_The Brigham Household- Family Room_

"Why did I choose your name?" Bridget Brigham pondered aloud. "Well, Erica means 'always a ruler'."

"I know, Mom," Erica said, slightly annoyed at the fact that her mother wouldn't just come out and tell her. "I looked up my name, and I know what it means. I want to know why you chose the name Erica as opposed to the name… I don't know… Sue, or Brittney, or something."

"I knew someone named Eric," Bridget said softly. "It's a story I'd rather not tell."

"Okay," Erica said. "Should I just put down that you named me after one of your friends from high school?"

"Yes, please," Bridget begged.

"Whatever," Erica said, making a note in her binder. "I'm just trying to pass this class. Ha-ha, that rhymed! Pass the class, pass the class, and pass the class."

_9:25 p.m._

_The Vasko Household- Konstantina's Bedroom_

"Your name is so very Greek," Lena Vasko told her daughter, Konstantina.

"Yeah," Konstantina replied. "Hey, is there a certain reason why somebody named Mrs. Christensen should have any connection with me, Erica Brigham, and Bailey McBrian?"

Lena's heart raced. There was so much Konstantina didn't- and couldn't- know. She sighed. "Don't worry, honey."

"I'm not worrying," Konstantina argued. "I'm just curious."

"Well, you oughtn't to be sticking your nose where it doesn't belong," Lena inform Konstantina.

"Yes," Konstantina said. "I'll remember that."

"Good girl," said Lena. "Now, go to bed."

_11:50 p.m._

_The Christensen Household- Attic_

It was almost midnight and Carmen Christensen knew she needed sleep. But she couldn't sleep until she found that box from high school. She felt like she had seen a ghost at West Chase Middle School that day. Looking at Bailey McBrian, Erica Brigham, and Konstantina Vasko gave her déjà vu, and not in a good way. She would see herself, Tibby, Bridget, and Lena for a split second when she looked into one of those girls' eyes, and then she would blink.

Bailey was definitely Tibby's daughter. Bailey herself had confirmed that. And Erica, Erica had Bridget's shockingly blonde hair. But what about Konstantina? Yes, she was Greek. Yes, she was pretty. But none of that necessarily made her Lena's daughter. All Greek girls pretty much looked the same, at least at a first glance,

Carmen needed the Pants. She needed her friends. That's why she stayed up until two a.m.


	3. Chapter 3

**Here's the third chapter! Thank you guys SO MUCH for reviewing. I'm so glad you liked my story. Also, does anybody know if I should be putting disclaimers here?**

_December 13, 2027_

_2:09 p.m._

_West Chase Middle School_

Erica was bored. Okay, so she had a slightly small attention span. Okay, so the bell for English to begin hadn't even rung yet. Okay, so she had a suspicion Mrs. Christensen was going to make things interesting again today. Okay, so she wasn't THAT bored.

A note from Kellie Vreeland fell into her hands. It was written in Kellie's careless handwriting.

_**I'm your cousin! Did U know that?**_

Yes, Erica had known that.

**Yes, I knew that.**

_**Really? How'd U find out?**_

**Why do U think my mom and your dad look alike & R always calling each other?**

_**I dunno… I figured that they were, like, friends or something?**_

**U R so out of it, Kellie!**

_**U R JK-ing, right?**_

This was a tricky situation to be in. Erica was not kidding, and she had always prided herself with her honesty. But Kellie would be very hurt if Erica told her the truth.

"May I see that note?" Mrs. Christensen asked. Erica reluctantly (but not TOO reluctantly) handed it up. Mrs. Christensen skimmed it over, then threw it in the trash can.

That note had provided Carmen Lucille Lowell Christensen with a missing clue. Vreeland wasn't a very common last name. Kellie had to be the daughter of Bridget's twin brother, Perry, making Erica, indeed, Bridget's daughter. The name Erica showed Carmen that Bridget didn't forget and that she held on to her memories. Carmen wasn't one to judge- her own daughter's name was Gilda. Gilda was only in first grade, because Carmen had married later in life then her friends. Carmen suddenly pitied the little girl. What was she thinking, naming her daughter after an aerobics center for pregnant women?

She was thinking that it was a way to hold onto Bee, and Tibby, and Lena. They were the Septembers, the Sisters of the Traveling Pants, the definition of best friends forever.

It was then that Carmen realized that she really needed to get back together with them. She had found the Pants, she knew their daughters. This had to be some kind of a sign, right? Today she would call them. She would make plans to go to lunch together. It would all be good.

_5:22 p.m._

_The Vasko Household- Kitchen_

Lena was trying to figure out a new recipe for gyros when the phone rang. "Konstantina, would you get that?" she hollered. "I'll bet it's your Aunt Effie."

"Hello, Vasko residence, Konstantina speaking," Konstantina said pleasantly. "Oh… uh, yeah… hang on…" She put her hand on the receiver and ran into the kitchen. "Mother, it's for you," she said. "It is my substitute teacher."

Lena set down the frozen lamb for the gyros and took the phone from her daughter, a look of confusion on her face. "Hello?" she said. "Carmen. Hi. What are you up to?"

"I was just wondering if you wanted to go for lunch Saturday with me, Bee, and Tibby," Carmen offered.

"I'd love to," she said. "But ever since… well, I can't leave Konstantina alone."

"She could come, too," Carmen amended. "I could have Tibby bring Bailey, and Bridget could bring Erica and Greta. I'll bring Gilda, she can play with Greta."

Lena gripped the side of the counter. It was confusing for her to hear those names in the same sentence. Too many memories flooded into her head. "Carmen, I don't know…" she said. "Wouldn't it be awkward for Konstantina to have lunch with her substitute?"

"Lenny, please," Carmen begged. "Konstantina is a great student, Lena, and I need this. I can't go into the class without seeing you guys in their faces if I don't see you for real."

Lena gave in, but only because she felt worried for Carmen. As she hung up the phone, she had to wonder if she made the right choice. She didn't want to remember. Memories hurt.

She went back to making supper. It contained a lot less emotion then Carmen.


	4. Chapter 4

_December 15, 2027_

_12:22 p.m._

_Violet's Kitchen_

Bailey had to wonder why her mom was making her go to Violet's Kitchen to have lunch with three of her mom's friends. One of which happened to be her substitute teacher. _Why Violet's Kitchen, _she wondered. Violet's Kitchen was a small restaurant that sold soup, salad, sandwiches, and cheesecake. It wasn't a dump, but it wasn't nice. There weren't a whole lot of workers there. Violet, obviously, who was some sort of a manager/head chef combination, not to mention the owner of the restaurant. Then there were Paolo and Florence, the two chefs. Last but not least was Lola, Violet's seventeen-year-old daughter, who ran the cash register and did anything else Violet felt the need to have her do. Lola's boyfriend, Vince, was in charge of maintenance, but he only came in after he was done for the day at one of the colleges in D.C.

Erica tried to calm down a screaming Greta. "Greta, Greta, shh," she said. "You're almost seven- that's too old for tantrums!" Bridget turned around in her seat, and handed Greta a book. That should calm her down for the remaining two and a half minutes before they arrived at Violet's Kitchen.

Lena checked her watch. Just as she did, Tibby, and who she assumed must be Bailey, walked up to the table she sat at.

"Lena!" Tibby cried, giving her friend a hug.

"How are you?" Lena asked politely.

"I'm doing good," Tibby said. "One of the smaller cinemas over in Chevy Chase bought my most recent film. It'll be playing mid-January."

"That's great," Lena said. "What's it about?"

"It's about this young girl," Tibby explained. "She finds a box of memories. Her mother has died, and so she shows it to her aunt. It's actually quite boring."

"No, it sounds like…" Lena saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of her eye. It was Bee! "Like a good movie," Lena finished. Tibby knew she was going to say something else.

Just as Bridget and her two daughters sat down at the table, Konstantina came back in from the restroom, and Carmen sat down with her little girl. They had been trying to pick a cheesecake.

"You guys now me as Mrs. Christensen," Carmen said. "But here, you can call me Carmen. And this is my daughter, Gilda. She's in first grade."

"I'm Bridget," Bee said. "You know Erica, and Greta is six."

"Tibby," Tibby said. "And Bailey."

"I'm Lena," Lena told the group. "This is my daughter, Konstantina."

"Let's get some food!" Carmen said.

Carmen ordered a big bowl of Spicy Southwest Soup, and so did Bailey. Lena and Greta got plain turkey sandwiches. Tibby ordered her all-time favorite, a sweet salad with apples and cranberries in it. Konstantina got a gyro. Bridget, Erica, and Gilda all got grilled cheese.

Talk around lunch involved their life, school, accomplishments, and other lighthearted topics.

Nobody mentioned the Pants. Carmen, never once, spoke the name Bailey out loud. Nobody wanted to mention that they hadn't seen each other since the funeral of Harold Vasko. The past was done, as far as this meal was concerned.

They ordered cheesecake. Half a cake with chocolate, half with mixed berries. They ate cheesecake. It all happened, but it didn't quite happen. Nobody had pictured it like this.

But one significant thing happened. For the first time, Bailey and Erica noticed how clingy Konstantina was to her mother. For the first time, they were in the same place, trying to connect. Bailey talked to Erica about something other than schoolwork. They talked about Konstantina (sort of behind her back). They talked about how awful it must be for her, growing up without a father. They talked about how amazing brave she was. They talked about being her friend. They made each other smile. Maybe it was more important to the girls than to the original Sisterhood.

Or maybe not.


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" Ann Brashares wrote it.**

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while… **

**Thanks to all of you who have reviewed! I really appreciate it. And to hahaheeheehaha… well, you'll find out. If not in this chapter, then the next one.**

_December 16, 2027_

_4:33 p.m._

_The Brigham household: Attic_

Erica was bored. She had hoped, secretly, of course, that meeting in Violet's Kitchen would inspire her to… something… maybe pursue a friendship with those girls? Oh, well. They were nothing like her. She was a cheerleader, Konstantina was an artist, and Bailey was just so smart.

So, instead, she sat rummaging around in her attic. Alone. Meanwhile, her little sister sucked up hours of mindless cartoons.

She saw a yellowing cardboard box that had, apparently, once held chips in a grocery store in Alabama. "Well there's something you don't see everyday," she muttered to herself. She peered inside of it, driven not by curiosity, but so she could tell her friends that she had seen the inside of a 2006 Alabaman Chip-Holding Box. She was becoming more and more easily amused.

On top there was a DVD- the really old kind that you had to actually stick into a television. She tossed that to the side. They didn't have a DVD-player in their house. They had sold their last one at a garage sale when she was even younger than Greta, right after the self-playing ones came out.

Next was a pair of pants. They were the ugliest pair of pants that she had ever seen before in her life. If that was the style back when this box had held chips, she was glad she hadn't been born in the past.

On the bottom was a book. No, it wasn't a book. It was what people had to use a long time ago, before everyone got e-Notemen. E-Notemen were book type things used in school. Students could take notes, research, type papers, and check their e-mails in one handy-dandy little piece of technology. A notebook! That's what that thing was. She picked it up out of the box and examined it.

The notebook was very peculiar. Someone had written on the cover of it. _**The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants—2010**_, it read. Then this person had taped a photo on it. Yes, that's right. Whoever this poor, technology-less person was, they had used _tape_. And not even the front-and-back kind. They had used the severely outdated back-only tape. Yikes.

Erica examined the photo. It was of four smiling young women. One had hair as blonde as her own, one was petite and freckled, with glasses, one was chunky and seemed to be of Mexican descent, and the other one was so beautiful, Erica hated this lady and wanted to spit on her.

Erica brought the cover closer to her face. Then she recognized the blonde women as her mother. Her own mother! But who were the three that were with her? Could they possibly be…

They were! That one with the glasses must have been Bailey's mother, Tabby or something. The Mexican-looking one was unmistakably Mrs. Christensen. Then the whole, spit-in-her-face feeling set in, and Erica realized that the pretty one must be Konstantina's mom, that widow, that frazzled-seeming one, the Greek girl. What was her name? It started with an L…

Erica opened up the cover of the notebook, and out flew a piece of stationary.

_**If you have found this, then we must all be married, and have kids.**_

_**Are we still friends? (We hope so.)**_

_**Are you friends? (We hope so even more.)**_

_**Whose daughter (or son) are you?**_

_**Do you look like us? (That's us, on the cover, in case you can't tell.)**_

_**Well, we're the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.**_

_**We're all grown up now.**_

_**But we're still at Gilda's, in between the water store and Yes! (YES!)**_

_**We all must go home now. **_

_**But, first, here.**_

_**Bridget found this box in a closet of stuff her dad has been nagging her to get rid of.**_

_**(Why she kept it is beyond the rest of us.)**_

_**Tibby made the DVD.**_

_**Carmen made up her mind to take The Pants out of her closet and put them in this time capsule.**_

_**And I, Lena, am writing the notebook.**_

_**(But we're all taking part in dictating it.)**_

_**Here are The Pants.**_

_**They're yours now. (No way will the fit US anymore.)**_

_**We wore them in summertime, and rotated them.**_

_**But that was then, not now.**_

_**Choose your own adventure with The Pants.**_

_**But remember… Pantslove. Love your friends, love yourself.**_

Strange, Erica thought. She looked at the pants again, but to her, they were just some ugly, doodled-on pants from two decades ago.

But, still, she decided to call Bailey and Konstantina. In a way, the Pants belonged to all of them.


End file.
